Hardstyle is a genre of EDM characterized by heavy bass and high BPM counts, typically in the range of 150. It lacks the fluidity of trance, which is the main characteristic that distinguishes it from hard trance. It sounds much like hardcore albeit at (relatively speaking) slower BPM counts.

Hardstyle is currently the music of choice in many European countries, especially Holland. Parties/raves that play hardstyle music include Qlimax, Q-Base (Q-Dance), and Sensation Black (ID&T).

Hardstyle, sometimes referred to as hardbass, is a sub-genre of trance music that is closely related to nu style gabber and hard trance. Its sound is usually characterized by a four to the floor kick beat and an off-beat gabber style bass line, trance like synth stabs and sweeps and miscellaneous samples. Tracks often feature excessive reverb and/or other effects, breakdowns and occasionally small breakbeat sections. The average tempo is between 140 and 150 bpm, around 30 slower than nu style gabber. Many hardcore artists produce hardstyle songs, which sound very similar but are more accessible. Hardstyle is generally played along side Nu-NRG and gabber in the UK and aside hard trance or hardcore in the rest of Europe.

Hardstyle, an EDM genre, was created as an alternative to hard house, hardcore, and gabber which were seen to be becoming too hard, fast, repetitive and invasive by the crowds.

Hardstyle is characterized by the heavy kickbass with subbass frequencies at about 130-150 bpm, accompanied by a high tempo melody, which creates an "adrenaline rushing and/or euphoric" feeling among fans at a live event.

Originating from the Netherlands around 1999-2000 and was an immediate success at raves, clubs and festivals.
The creation of Hardstyle is credited to Dov Ekrebas aka. The Prophet, however this is disputed.

Often confused with hard house, hard trance, psy trance or hardcore, its creation was intended to be a refined combination of the other harder styles, and to create a more crowd friendly hard dance scene.

Hardstyle is the music that is most commonly used at raves. It generally has a BPM of 130-150 which means it is much faster than other techno types such as trance. Hardstyle is sometimes confused with hardcore but the bass used is noticeably different. Hardstyle is also the music that is accompanied by whats known as the 'Melbourne Shuffle'.

A genre of hard dance music. First created in the late 90s-early 00s when DJs such as The Prophet and Lady Dana started experimenting with their Nu Style Gabber records, slowing them down by 20-30 BPM to make them more danceable.

Hardstyle tracks can be separated into two categories:

Old School Hardstyle: Commonly known as Early Hardstyle. Usually 140 BPM, characterized by a compressed kick drum sound and a reversed bassline, which can be heard in the offbeat after each kick.

Nu Hardstyle: Also known as Nu Style. Usually 150-160 BPM, with distortion on the kick drum sound, which is often pitch shifted to create a bassline for the melodic part. Nu Style melodies are often written in tuplet, and entire tracks often have “swing” added to them.

DJs and DJ Teams who produce Hardstyle and play it live include Technoboy, DJ Zany, Blutonium Boy, The Prophet (Later work), Showtek, Headhunterz, D-Block & S-te-Fan and Noisecontrollers.

Rave events at which Hardstyle is played include Qlimax, Defqon 1 and Sensation Black.